


galileo, galileo

by swimthewholeriogrande



Series: Hurt Jake Peralta [3]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt Jake Peralta, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Consensual Groping, Non-Consensual Touching, Panic Attacks, Protectiveness, Sexual Harrassment, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 06:41:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19167865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimthewholeriogrande/pseuds/swimthewholeriogrande
Summary: Jake gets a taste of what Amy has gone through (and subsequently wants to crawl out of his own skin.)





	galileo, galileo

The first weird thing - red flag, if you will - is that Chief Maxwell tells Jake to call her Hannah. 

He's only come down the Crime Control Strategies Bureau to do this interview thing because Holt had asked him to. They wanted an on-the-ground opinion, the captain had said, so Jake had given up his Thursday night with some reluctance and is now sitting in this small office with the fan choking in the corner and Chief Maxwell's - Hannah's - eyes dissecting him like an insect. 

He shoots her a winning smile, shifting in his chair, trying to dispel the awkwardness. She smiles back, but it's wolfish, and Jake kinda hopes they get this over with quickly so he can get back home and watch a rerun of Property Brothers with Amy. 

Hannah seems to have no such feeling. She strings him along with small talk, about the 99 and his family and where he grew up, and a hundred other things that Jake knows won't make a report. The time is dragging. He starts drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair by instinct, and she notices. 

"I hope I'm not keeping you, detective."

"Uh, no, no." Jake forces his fingers to still; she's ranks and ranks above him and he'd prefer to keep on the good side of at least some of his higher-ups. "No rush."

Hannah's eyes flash in a way that makes him think of far-off light shifting over sharks' irises, flat and predatory. "I'm sure you're in a hurry to get home to your wife - Any, right? That Mexican woman?"

Jake jerks upright. "She's Cuban, actually." he snaps indignantly, and Hannah holds up her hands in mock surrender.

"My bad. How long have you two been married now?"

Jake is painfully aware of the clock ticking, and also suddenly how small this room is. "Year and half, about." he mutters; he's tired of this now and forgetting his civility for a moment he asks, "can we start the interview?"

Hannah stands up, stretching like a cat, luxurious and deadly. "Thought there was no rush?" she asks teasingly, and comes around the desk to sit on it, about a foot away from him. Jake almost shunts his chair back across the floor away from him, but he reminds himself again of her superiority and also that hey, she's probably just a little flirty. It's nothing he hasn't handled before.

"You must be so bored," she remarks causually then; Jake can smell her perfume, sickening roses. "Stuck at that precinct for so many years. Surely you're due some sort of career change?"

Jake's spine is tingling with nerves now, irrational but unignorable. "I'm happy at the 99," he replies slowly, unsure of where she's going to go with this, and Hannah smiles benevolently and -

Her high heel brushes his shin, almost imperceptie but too slow to be accidental, and Jake's next sentence sticks fast in his throat. Hannah reaches out and tucks his hair behind his ear and Jake is suddenly sure this is the smallest room in the world, that Hannah has the coldest hands, that the fan is about to die if it keeps making those sounds.

"Surely you'd want a higher position." Hannah murmurs. She's closer, leaning forward. When did she get closer, Jake thinks desperately? "I could make that happen, Jake. Wouldn't you like that?

He can't move. His fingers are ice. "Chief Maxwell," he starts to wheeze out, but she places her thumb on his lip and manages to gag him with the mere suggestion of a touch.

"I could help you, and then you could help me." Hannah is still smiling. "Does that sound nice?"

There is a fleeting, terrible moment where Jake thinks she is going to lean in further and kiss him, and Jake realises with frightening clarity that he can't even twitch to stop her. Then the fan splutters loudly in the corner, dying with a sigh, and the spell is broken.

Jake shoots to his feet, stumbling back so fast that his chair tips onto its side and lies there, forlorn. "No." His voice is unsteady. "This isn't - I'm done here."

Hannah sighs, like he's only mildly inconvenienced her. "Alright, I get it." she acqueises. "Devoted husband, blah blah blah. Let me get the door."

Jake can feel his hands shaking. He stands there silently, small and stupid, as she walks by him and turns the handle, and he almost trips in his haste to leave when -

She grabs his ass, squeezes and slaps it, and then lets go. "Damn shame," she sighs, and it's over. Just like that. Like it never happened. 

Jake is in the lobby. Jake is on the street. Jake is in a cab. Jake is falling through the door of his flat, and be doesn't know how he got there but he does know that his chest is tight and empty and his skin is gross, disgusting, burning, she touched him, she groped him, he's disgusting -

He's half aware of Amy rushing to his side as he crashes onto the couch, eyes wide and blind, and he can hear her frantically asking questions but when he reaches out to him he - flinches. He doesn't mean to. Jake's heart breaks when she withdraws her hand, looking confused, but his skin, his skin -

It feels like hours until he can breathe, but it was only few minutes, he knows, because he hears Amy press her stopwatch when he finally starts taking in oxygen. "Okay," she says, very calmly, "okay, babe, what's going on?"

A shudder rolls through Jake. He sees shark-eyes, wolf-smiles. "Maxwell," he grinds out, and that's all he can say without his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. 

Amy's face is kind and patient. He lets her hold his hand now, and squeeze it tight, and he's astonished at how different her touch feels to Hannah's. It spurs him on and he continues, swallowing. 

"She, uh, she was - kind of flirting with me, and then it got uncomfortable, y'know, and - she was persistent and she..."

Amy's thumb presses into his palm when his words fail. Jake grabs her wrist with his other hand, suddenly needing any touch but the phantom one. 

"She touched my - my mouth. And then I tried to leave and as she was letting me out she kind of...grabbed my ass."

He lets out a sigh of relief that he can stop now. There is silence otherwise. 

Then Jake looks up, and Amy's head is bowed, some grief in her eyes that she won't let him say. "I'm sorry," Jake." she says quietly; her voice shakes. "I'm sorry that happened to you."

Jake thinks about her story about her former captain - he'll never be able to forget it - and wonders if she is feeling the same rage, the same second-hand pain, that he felt for her. He wonders how Amy got past it, because right now he doesn't ever think the sick feeling in his gut will fade.

"We can report her." Amy says suddenly, raising her head and inadvertedly showing him the tears in her eyes. "I didn't and - and I wish I had. Do you want that?"

"Yeah - yeah, sure." Jake feels exhaustion curl his shoulders, all expended adrenaline. "Tomorrow, though. Not right now."

"Of course." Amy pulls him to her, until he can bury her face in her hair and smell her, so different to Hannah's sickly sweetness. "Whatever you want."

She lets him stay like that, safe in her arms, for so long that Jake starts to forget what the rest of life is. It seems that there's only ever been this; her heartbeat, and his nausea that refuses to subside, and the rest of the frightening and discouraging world locked out of it all.


End file.
